Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Supported by

Preventing Accidental Poisonings

By Tara Parker-Pope November 7, 2011 5:03 pmNovember 7, 2011 5:03 pm

With an increasingly complex array of drugs found in many medicine cabinets, parents need to be reminded all over again about the importance of keeping medications away from young children, writes Dr. Perri Klass in the latest 18 and Under column:

Toxic ingestions by young children tend to peak during the toddler years (fully one-third of calls to poison centers concern 1- and 2-year-olds), for reasons familiar to parents: curiosity, increasing mobility and a complete lack of common sense. Poisonings rise again during the teenage years, as adolescents experiment with virtually any substance that can be sniffed or swallowed. In recent years, prescription drugs have ranked second only to marijuana as drugs of abuse among adolescents.

According to data compiled by Dr. Alvin C. Bronstein, the director of surveillance for the American Association of Poison Control Centers, and Dr. Daniel A. Spyker of Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., three types of exposures have increased most significantly among children ages 10 to 19 during the last decade: ingestions of atypical antipsychotic drugs, up by 543 cases per year on average; ingestions of benzodiazepines (anti-anxiety drugs), which have risen by 328 cases per year; and ingestions of certain antiseizure medications, which have grown by 300 cases a year.

For more about the nation’s poison control centers and accidental poisonings, read the full column, “Poison Centers Facing Greater Risks All Around,” and then please join the discussion below. Have you ever had to call a poison center? Tell us about it.